The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘You actually knew the shooters were working for him?’

‘Well, not at first. I’d heard rumours of what they were after, but I only started putting it together after you and I and Antony encountered them in the lane at Hergest Court. Ended up meeting a very interesting old guy in Kington — no friend of Dacre’s and more than willing to talk to me about a number of things, as it happens. Yes, of course I knew who they were working for.’

‘So when you found that guy Nathan…’

‘When I lost it completely, you mean, Jane? When I risked facing a murder charge?’

Jane squirmed. She looked away from Ben’s taunting eyes, inevitably up at the etching. And then it was like Holmes’s pistol had gone off in her head in a spurt of light. Something began, shockingly, to make sense.

Ben looked up as Natalie’s head came round the door.

‘Ben, Alistair Hardy’s just arrived, with that guy Matthew. I’ve shown them up to the Chancery room. I have to take Clancy to a neighbour’s for the night, OK? The drive’s totally blocked at The Nant — I’ll be back later.’

‘Nat — do be careful. We need you enormously this weekend.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’ll try not to get stuck,’ Natalie said, and Ben raised a hand.

For a moment, as the door closed on Natalie, the instability of the Border seemed to vibrate through the room, making everything glow, but with a cheap and garish light. Jane took a breath and came right out with it.

‘The truth is that the very last thing you wanted was for those guys to come out of the pines with a dead puma. That would’ve blown it, right?’

‘Blown it?’

‘The mystique.’ Jane gripped the sides of her chair. ‘A whole century’s worth. Like, you don’t believe the story of the spectral hound, but you don’t want it disproved either. You didn’t want those guys coming up with anything real that they’d shot. Certainly not anywhere near Stanner. Like… Oh, we’ve shot the Hound. And it gets in all the papers. You really didn’t want that.’

‘Would’ve been a touch prosaic,’ Ben agreed.

‘And that was really… that was why?’

She heard him shouting at the shooters on the last night of the murder weekend. I warned you, not on my land! This time you’re fucking dog meat!

You thought you knew about people. She’d had this nice, safe image of Ben: clever, charming, theatrical, faintly camp.

Ben shrugged. Jane almost cringed from him.

The snow was piled like mashed potato out by the entrance of Danny’s place, and Danny had his tractor out, with the snow-plough attachment and the spotlights. If he got it cleared now and he was up again by five tomorrow, likely he could keep on top of it.

He climbed down and stood by the gate, looking out. The Queens of the Stone Age were giving it some welly from the stereo back in the cab, singing, as it happened, about the sky falling. If this went on, there’d be some contract work for him and Gomer, from the county highways, sure to be. Plant hire, like Gomer kept saying, never slept.

Normally he’d be excited: snow was a challenge, folk needed help. But tonight he felt weary. Biggest problem was the lane outside — passable now, with four-wheel drive, but tomorrow was another day. Danny was knackered now, and the snow was oppressive.

Back at the house, he saw a tongue of yellow light — the back door opening — and Greta shouted, ‘Is it clear?’

‘Clear as I can get it without two tons of grit.’ Danny left the music on and trudged back up the path.

‘Only Jeremy rang, see. Wanted to know if we could take the child tonight on account his track’s blocked solid.’

Danny kept on walking till he reached the back door. ‘Gimme that again, Gret.’

‘The child. Clancy? That woman— Her mother… is gonner bring her down from the hotel. Drop her off yere.’

‘Wants us to have her?’

‘I said I’d make up the spare bed.’

Danny stood just short of the step, trying to figure it. This Natalie and the kiddie, here they were at a great big hotel full of empty bedrooms… and they wanted the spare bed in the box-room where he kept all his albums. But even that wasn’t the most unlikely aspect of it.

‘Nothing strike you as funny, Gret?’ Danny breathed in stinging air through his teeth. ‘Jeremy’s track? When is Jeremy’s track ever blocked?’

‘You gonner come in or not, ’fore we loses every bit of heat in the house?’ Greta backed away from the cold, arms folded.

Danny stepped inside. ‘If anybody knowed the big snow was on the way… When I was up The Nant earlier on, he’d got a trailerload of grit all ready. Had his ewes down last night, all tucked up. And now you tell me—’

Danny’s brain froze.

‘Well, what you want me to say?’ Greta demanded. ‘I accuse him of lying, say we en’t having the girl—? What’s wrong?’

‘He don’t want the kiddie there. Why don’t he want the kiddie there?’

Her stared at him, not getting it.

‘Greta, how’d he sound? What d’he sound like, in hisself?’

‘Sounded like he always does, to me. Half-baked. What’s the—?’

‘When was this? When’d he ring?’

‘Half an hour ago, mabbe. You was busy out there, I didn’t wanner bother you with—’

‘Holy shit, Greta…’ The jolt to Danny’s senses kicked him back outside. He shut his eyes and he threw his head back, feeling the fat snowflakes coming down on his upturned face and his beard and his gritted teeth. He snapped back upright. ‘Call him.’ Wiping his eyes hard with the heel of his hand. ‘If he don’t answer, call again. And again.’

‘What do I say to him?’

‘Talk about the weather, talk about any damn thing.’ Danny stumbled away through the snow to his tractor. ‘But keep him talking.’

Jane ran upstairs and tossed the camcorder on her bed in fury. Picked up her phone and saw there was a message on the voice-mail: Antony’s number.

Sod that. She dropped the phone on the bed and sat quietly for a while with the light out, watching the snow drifting past the window, wishing she’d caught the usual bus, gone home to Mum. Someone you could count on to behave like… decently.

What was worst about this was that Ben didn’t even seem to see anything vaguely wrong in meeting violence with violence. And all to sustain his hugely powerful image.

She felt sick. She wanted out of here.

With no enthusiasm, she picked up the phone, keyed in the message.

‘Jane. Listen, hen, I have a problem. We’re talking white hell here. Those guys at the Highways Agency, they’re never prepared for cruel and unusual weather, and it looks like they’re about to close the Severn Bridge. I’m doing ma best here, but it may be tomorrow night or later before I can get over there. Looks like it’s down to you, the big one. Don’t worry about it, you screw up it’s no’ the end of the world, we can reconstruct. Just weld the wee thing to your hands and get what you can: lots of Ben, lots of the weirdos, keep in tight, don’t zoom. And don’t be put off; they get used to the lens, the punters and the victims both. Good luck.’

‘Sod off,’ Jane said sourly. If they thought she wanted to be part of the artifice, they could both sod off.

It seemed likely now that they were all in this — the White Company too. Was Alistair Hardy really going to tell the viewers that he couldn’t actually get Conan Doyle on the line? Was he going to tell Ben that Conan Doyle had confirmed to him that the Hound was purely a Devon myth? Not if he had any psychic sense of what Ben was